Paperback 1002: Naked in Paris / Zack Robertts (Carousel 513)

Paperback 1002: Carousel Books 513 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Naked in Paris
Author: Zack Robertts
Cover artist: cheap-ass photographer

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12-15

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Super-hot top and chair totally undermined by world's most disgusting carpet remnant
• Nice gams, tho
• I like how she's carefully posed but also looks Completely surprised someone is taking her picture. "I'm just gonna enjoy a little after-party time with my favorite carpet remnant and ... oh! A photographer! I didn't see you there!"
• Zack Robertts—the extra T is for "titillation"! (is what I assume his business cards said)

Best things about this back cover:

• Hell yeah, it's frank! All the best stories are frank! Frank!
• Modern love = sex in this mid-century butterfly chair—bonne chance!
• "World capitals," LOL. "Which ones?" "Some of them!"

Page123~

It wasn't exactly as I had planned and dreamed it over many months, but it was only for a brief stopover, but I was going home. And I felt pretty good about it.

But I don't feel pretty good about that first sentence, but what do I know?

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 1001: I, Barbarian / Jay Scotland (Avon T-375)

Paperback 1001: Avon T-375 (PBO, 1959)

Title: I, Barbarian
Author: Jay Scotland
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12

Best things about this cover:

• His mind on women, his groin on horses
• I, Shirtless—the flamingest novel east of the Urals!
• His left hand is weird. Like it should be holding something. An ice cream cone, or a lovely bouquet of flowers, perhaps

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel's not frank, but it is frankish
• Adjective every noun!
• I like this little sword-split design

Page 123~

"Didn't you notice the unbounded delight in the eyes of his highest excellency when you gave that last feverish lunge toward the edibles?"

If there's another way to approach edibles, I haven't found it.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 1000: The Case of the Musical Cow / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 1063)

Paperback 1000: Pocket Books 1063 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Case of the Musical Cow
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: photo cover (Silver Studios)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12-15

Best things about this cover:

• After "All About Eve," Bette Davis's career took a weird turn there for a bit...
• Out with the old kind of mystery about DOPE and MURDER, in with the new kind of mystery about DOPE and MURDER. What's new, you ask? Well, musical cows, for one. Admit it, you did not see that coming.
• Is that an Eames chair? That's some pretty stylish bondage.
• There is a *lot* of rope in her lap, which the red-painted case title and the immersive mustard experience are probably supposed to distract you from.

Best things about this back cover:

• I love (like, Love) that the exciting red cursive intro text just says "Rob Trenton."
• I also love (like, Am In Awe Of) Erle Stanley Gardner's psychopathic signature.
• Ooh, Europe. How exoticish!

Page 123~

Rob Trenton, who had been listening incredulously, said, "That's a lie! That whole statement is false. This man is one of the . . . "

At this point, Rob Trenton was deemed both too implausible and too boring to continue as a functioning character in this story, and so he simply exploded, leaving the remaining characters staring (incredulously, of course) at an empty chair.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 999: All Shot Up / Chester Himes (Ace T-434)

Paperback 999: Avon T-434 (PBO, 1960)

Title: All Shot Up
Author: Chester Himes
Cover artist: Uncredited (!!) (update: appears to be work of George Ziel)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $65-80

Best things about this cover:

• Gah, so great. So so great. Multiple scenes of hot hardboiled greatness. Tough-guy mug, sexy naked lady, trenchcoat gunfight ... bar! All the good things.
• Chester Himes is fantastic. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger are unique and important figures in the history of detective fiction. Badass *and* hilarious. Their dialogue is amazing, as are their razor-sharp observations on race relations in the city. Highly recommended.
• Either that dude is holding the wrong end of the cigarette or he's holding a very tiny test tube.

Best things about this back cover:

• Big on alliteration, this copywriter. First babes bourbon and bullets, now hailing in Harlem...
• "Eight—Count 'em, eight—corpses." Eight, OK, I believe you, eight. Jeez. Don't get so defensive.
• "Skidding on ice and breathing fire"—which Game of Thrones book was that?

Page 123~

"I'd rather be bit in the rear by a boa constrictor than sitting here waiting for something to happen, and I can't even guess what," he complained bitterly.

It's a boa constrictor ... I mean it can bite, sure, but ... it's kind of known for ... the other ... oh nevermind.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 998: Mig Alley / Robert Eunson (Ace D-365)

Paperback 998: Ace D-365 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Mig Alley
Author: Robert Eunson
Cover artist: Verne Tossey

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• That is the face of a man of literally insane confidence: "I will die and be reborn and rule the heavens. Yes, this is a good death."
• There are a lot of planes in this shot, all of them like three yards from each other. Is this normal / physically possible?
• The way you know this cover was designed exclusively for straight dudes is that she looks fantastic whereas he looks like what would happen if the contents of a vacuum bag suddenly came to life and took the form of a remarkably graceless vampire.

Best things about this back cover:

• MIGs crossing the YALU! This scratches all of my crossword itches!
• I find the motion lines on MIG ALLEY adorable.
• On the Sexy-Name-O-Meter, I gotta believe Homer McCullough registers pretty low.

Page 123~

"Let's get ourselves attached to a couple of these Chinese doll-babies and see what happens."
The waitress was back with our drinks so I said, "Bring two hostesses, please."
"Whach [sic!] kind you like? Tall, skinny, fatso?" She laughed.
"A short one," Mac said, "just like you."

Yes. Yes, I do believe the guy on the front cover would do / say all of this. Yes. On-brand.

[The Orientalism goes to 11 over the course of the next few pages, to the point of incoherence: "Her hips, however, bulged to the seams of the dress, giving the sultry hint of the East." Why Does That Last Phrase Even Exist?! I mean, you were doing so well, right up to "dress," and then, like those MIGs on the front cover ... !?!?]

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 997: The Mask on a Wanton's Torso / John Reade (Venus VV104)

Paperback 997: Venus Books VV104 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Mask on a Wanton's Torso*
Author: John Reade
Cover artist: a photographer in the anteroom of hell

Condition: 9/10
Estimated value: $20-ish

[newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Looking at this cover is about as close to watching a snuff film as I'll ever come. It's horrifying. I feel like the cameraman murdered her like five seconds after this shot was taken. Or else she was paid in heroin and sent back out into the snow dressed just like that. Most of my sleaze paperbacks are campy fun to look at. This one, no, not.
• If you burn that couch, hundreds of damned souls are unleashed into the world, to torture and haunt the living.
• "Here, put this on"—the world's most negligent art director
• Ah, the world of erotic nonsense phrases—so delicious. Lust game! Sin secret! Wanton's torso!?!?
• *You see how I put an asterisk by the title (up top)? That's because ... well, how to describe it? This book is unique, in my experience, in having a title on the cover that Does Not Match The Title On The Spine (which reads "The Mask *OF* the Wanton's Torso"(!?)). But it's uniqueness doesn't stop there. Forget two titles—this book .... Has Two Authors: WHO IS PHIL BOTNER?!

And the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• Stud Hunter! I think I own one of those.
• Shame event! Passion fling!  FLESH GAIETY!!! Beat that ... every other back cover sleaze copywriter.
• That's not how en dashes work.
• Yikes, even the line spacing on this is disgusting.

Page 123~ (brace yourself)

There was a door there. She could not remember how she had come upstairs. Frantically she opened it. There was only a tiny passageway, leading to another door. Frantically she thought it might be a back way down, down and out of this house.

Torn between laughing at Double Frantically and crying at the attempted poetry of that second "down,."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 996: Playgirl For Hire / Sylvia Sharon (Domino Books 82-104)

Paperback 996: Domino Books 82-104 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Playgirl For Hire
Author: Sylvia Sharon (pseud. of Paul Little)
Cover artist: photo cover

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $25-30

Best things about this cover:

• "Put down that drink and let's go do some tumbling? Whaddya say?"
• I assume these ladies are supposed to be facsimiles of Playboy Bunnies (?) but aside from the liquor and the heels, and maybe the floor, this cover seems less "big-time vice" and more "back stage at the taping of a yoga class for public access TV."
• "Oh, Patti, I feel so enmeshed in big-time vice." "Those are just stockings, dearie."

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the old "daddy issues lead Kitty to sin city" narrative. Klassic.
• There's a haven for the bored and jaded? How do I get there?
• No models were harmed in the shooting of the cover photo

Page 123~

Kitty thought it curious that Pearl should suddenly gulp, turn very red, and squirm nervously about as she hastened to reply, "Oh, I do, Miss Wilson."

I wanted to cut that quote short at "gulp," but kept going in the interest of journalistic integrity.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 995: Take Me In Passion / Donna Richards (Domino Books 72-929)

Paperback 995: Domino Books 72-929 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Take Me In Passion
Author: Donna Richards
Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15-20

[new addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• It was a weird time for metal.
• Opium Addicts Surreptitiously Admire Each Other's Bras
• "Like the wig? It's Bowie's." "Really!?" "No, I found it in a dumpster."
• "Maybe we should've gone with a professional stylist...?" "Shhh ... the panther ... he sees us ..." (seriously, what is that shadow?)
• They had to re-release this book after the original title, Take Me In Indifference, failed to move buyers.
• Love how the "Adult Reading" notice looks much more like "Exciting Feature!" than "Warning!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "They had to choose ... but could they?" Look, make up your mind. Those sad shirtless lesbians either had agency or they didn't.
• No, *you're* the passion's puppet! No puppet, no puppet! (dear future, this is a reference to a 2016 political moment that's probably best forgotten, I'm sorry)
• Wow, it gets unexpectedly Homeric there at the end, with "foreordained" this and "all-powerful, erotic destiny" that. The gods do love laughing at havoc.

Page 123~

Marty Green waggled his forefinger before the boy's nose. "No . . . you . . . don't! What do you think I am, like that broad I'm looking for? You think I'm queer like her? Well, she's not even my own daughter, what do you think of that? I adopted her, like a damn fool. Imagine? I adopted a queer!"

I know a lot is happening in this paragraph, but I'm kinda still stuck on "waggled."

~RP

P.S. bonus material from p. 123:

"You're drinking nothing! What the hell do you think I am, some kind of a hick? I'm Marty Green!"

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 994: Rainbow In My Bed / Rex Rainey (Brandon House 1019)

Paperback 994: Brandon House 1019 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Rainbow in My Bed
Author: Rex Rainey
Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 6.5/10
Estimated value: $25-30

[New addition to The Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Since "rainbow" didn't have the queer implications then that it does now ... I have no idea what this means. Maybe that's her name?
• Design is unique, but terrible. Terribly unique. It conveys nothing. The shattered fragmentation of it all runs counter to the bland tourism-poster pictures and the childish R A I N B O W
• There is a ski in that middle-bottom triangle. Which is weird, as I can see the sunny seaside in the other picture, and also she does not appear to be dressed for skiing.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Nobody came to ski" — ah, yes, well, that explains the cover
• "Nobody came to ski" is one of the greatest, if not The greatest, sleaze taglines of all time. I intend to use it, suggestively, every chance I get.
• The skier looks like an anthropomorphic boar. Descending from the sky. On bolts of lightning.

Page 123~

This time it gave and came all the way out with a loud plonk.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 993: The Farm / Louis Bromfield (Signet D1260)

Paperback 993: Signet D1260 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Farm
Author: Louis Bromfield
Cover artist: James Avati

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Hay rides have always sounded like hell to me, but this doesn't look so bad.
• This is probably the single hottest Avati cover of all time. Note that 99% of all Avati covers involve people standing motionless and looking sad.
• It really is exquisite as a piece of figurative art—those heads, arms, calves, feet!—and all the peripheral details are rendered with keen-eyed precision as well.

Best things about this back cover:

• Jeez, Omaha World-Herald. Dial it back a notch.
• I'm here for the hot rural action, not "Indian massacres." Come on, Bromfield!
• He looks like Mickey Spillane's yokel cousin.

Page 123~

And for days Johnny was haunted by a vision of Greataunt (sic) Jane clad in a pink union suit with a corset cover of passementerie.

When you don't have internet porn, you make do.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 992: The Tents of Wickedness / Peter De Vries (Signet D1827)

Paperback 992: Signet D1827 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Tents of Wickedness
Author: Peter De Vries
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 7/10 (crisp and bright, but binding's a bit wonky)
Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• I think she's supposed to be sitting on that branch (?), but I like to think she's working the door at the Tents of Wickedness: "Look, you wanna get in, you're gonna have to lose the clothes. Get naked or scram, I ain't got all day!"
• Seriously, I love her, her defiant attitude, and all her convenient foliage.
• "... a fancy-free girl who believes in free expression, free verse and free love"—I'm 2/3 with you, sweetheart!

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah, rehash!
• "... and wild for to hold, though I seem tame."—Wyatt
• Cover copy makes author sound irreverent and saucy, whereas author photo makes him look like someone who would burn Sears catalogues to save the world from masturbatory thoughts.

Page 123~

She sat on her side of the bed, with a book of her own in which she was underlining passages heavily with a pencil. I drew her skirt up and pressed a cheek to her thighs, murmuring a declaration in her favor.

"A declaration in her favor" is beautiful and merciful in its openness. Let us imagine (or refuse to imagine). It's better than whatever specific utterance could possibly go there.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 991: The Silencers / Donald Hamilton (Gold Medal k1392)

Paperback 991: Gold Medal k1392 (2nd ptg, 1964)

Title: The Silencers
Author: Donald Hamilton
Cover art: Uncredited

Condition: 9/10 (unread)
Estimated value: $13-15

Best things about this cover:

• Is that a belt? It looks like Satan's own spatula. Either way, that's *gotta* hurt.
• What kind of space-age roller-coaster are these people fighting over?
• I love the effusion of motion lines. Makes a mockery of the very idea of motion lines. Way more lines than there could be motions. Bonkers.
• I'm guessing the lady is supposed to be bound, but it looks like she was just napping.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... a long day's journey into ..." The next word in that sentence should be MURDER, not the painfully anticlimactic "the New Mexico mountains."
• "God help us all"—man, I didn't realize official file cards got that emotive.
• "Jimmy Bond!" "Fop!" Take that ... Britain!

Page 123~

"Then somebody heaved a knife and everything went to hell."

Thanksgiving's a rough holiday for everyone.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 990: Sugar Shannon / Adam Knight (Belmont Books 217)

Paperback 990: Belmont 217 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Sugar Shannon
Author: Adam Knight
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 9/10
Estimated value: $20

Best things about this cover:

• I love this cover. Mostly I love that it's so ****ing purple, and then that the title is yellow and oddly placed. I also love her big, calmly intense eyes, and the way she cradles that gun lovingly between her breasts. Either this is a next-level sexy role-playing scenario, or someone is gonna get very murdered.
• I know when I go to rendezvous (-vouses?), my preferred method of travel is drifting.
• Series!? Here's the other Adam Knight book in the Pop Sensation archives—throwback! (2007).

Best things about this back cover:

• Scorching yellow!
• Tiny Shannon. That is a weird use of the front cover image.
• Wow, this passage and synopsis tell us ... nothing. It's boiler-plate, bot-written cover copy.

Page 123~

Serena's flat was a paradox. It screamed mediocrity, it stank of the buckeye in art and upholstery.

Don't know what it means, don't care what it means—but "it stank of the buckeye" is my new go-to judgment phrase.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 989: Once Upon a Dreadful Time / ed. Alfred Hitchcock (Dell 6622)

Paperback 989: Dell 6622 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: (Alfred Hitchcock's) Once Upon a Dreadful Time (Dell 6622)
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Cover artist: Banbury (one name! stylish)

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Alas, poor Hitchcock...
• Nice self-sideeye
• Not sure why he's hiding a skull ... from ... himself ... but I'll admit it all looks super-cool.

Best things about this back cover:

• Donald Westlake completists will want to be sure to pick this up
• Contributors are indeed exclusively male. Women wrote a lot of horror / crime / suspense stories, so the men-only thing here is at least a little weird.
• The whole Hal Ellson / Hal Elison thing is so weird that his name is spelled both ways in this book (in table of contents, it's ELLSON—which is correct. Here's the NYT also getting it wrong in 1955). And then there's this, from wikipedia:

Harlan Ellison cites Ellson's work as having inspired his own interest in juvenile delinquency — an interest which led directly to the writing of Ellison's first novel, Web of the City. Ellison has also stated that in the earliest days of his career as a writer, he was often mistaken for Ellson writing under a pseudonym — and that decades later, when Ellison had become much more known and Ellson's career had waned, Ellson was often mistaken for Ellison writing under a pseudonym.

 Page 123~ (from "Anatomy of an Anatomy" by Donald Westlake)

At three o'clock on the dot, she heard a thump from above, and knew it was the head.

Westlake is just a champ and that's all there is to it.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 988: The Trail of Fu Manchu / Sax Rohmer (Pyramid R-1003)

Paperback 988: Pyramid R-1003 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: The Trail of Fu Manchu
Author: Sax Rohmer
Cover artist: Robert Maguire (credited as "Bob Maguire")

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Psst, guys, he's up there ... up ... to your right ... your ... my left ... up ...
• "I say, old man, is he in there?" "I'm afraid not." "Perhaps if you put down your brolly..." "No, I think not." "Well, we've done all we can. Tea?"
• This cover has all the drama and suspense of two dapper gents opening a green box.
• I like the inverted male gaze here—instead of two guys ogling naked lady statues, we have naked lady statues ogling two guys.
• It's not one of Maguire's more memorable covers, but Maguire is Maguire is Maguire; I'll take it.
• My wife got me this book at The Last Bookstore in L.A., which sounds Uh-mazing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Blah blah pulp cliche / orientalist nonsense
• But Nay!
• This was quite the franchise. I have never read any of these. Wonder if it's worth it...

Page 123~

"We are in part of the workings of an abandoned Thames tunnel. We are together because . . . we are going to die together."

See, I know I'm supposed to be rapt by the dramatic final utterance here, but all I can think of is "Why the hell is 'part of the workings of' in that first sentence!? Do you enjoy murdering sentences? Do You!?"

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 987: New York: Confidential / Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer (Dell 1534)

Paperback 987: Dell 1534 (2nd ptg, 1951)

Title: New York: Confidential
Author: Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Guys! Dolls! Together!
• Robert Stanley's people are always ridiculously rich and creamy.
• Seriously, the art is gorgeous. That dark aquamarine NYC night sky somehow works perfectly.

Best things about this back cover:

• Map! Back! Mapback!
• It's a pretty dang dull map, from a design point of view, but the "Key" on p. 240 is amazing. All those little numbers on the map represent "Hotels," "Night Clubs & Restaurants," "Theaters," and "Shopping":

Also, there are appendices of cool info like "Headwaiters' Names" (!?) and a "Glossary of Harlemisms":



Page 123~

Do not use cheap perfume when night-clubbing (or at any time).

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 986: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts / Donald Barthelme (Pocket 80771)

Paperback 986: Pocket Books 80771 (1st ptg, 1976)

Title: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
Author: Donald Barthelme
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap.
• "Uh ... Martha ... Junior's up."
• Seriously, though, holy crap. That ain't right.
• I don't normally go past the '60s with my collection, but I discovered some time ago that '70s paperback covers are their own kind of bonkers. Not always fully painted, but often loopy enough design-wise to be really interesting. I suspect that if I ever start *adding* to my collection again (I've still got ~2000 books I *haven't* written about), I'll be hunting a lot of pristine '70s/'80s-era stuff. I mean, if the 60s were my outer limit 22 years ago (when I started collecting) ... no reason that limit can't shift with the times.
• Nice to see Harry Bennett's name in the artist credit. Hell, nice to see an artist credit at all. Bennett was a prolific '60s cover artist. No idea how long his cover career lasted. . . whoa. He lived until 2012, age 93.
• FEEL FREE TO BUY ME THIS ORIGINAL BENNETT COVER PAINTING ANY TIME.

Best things about this back cover:

• No, this "text" crap will not do, you stupid '70s blurb-driven back cover.
• It does make me want to read Barthelme, though, which I haven't done in decades.

Page 123~ (from "Alice")

I want to fornicate with Alice but it is a doomed project fornicating with Alice there are obstacles impediments preclusions estoppels I will exhaust them for you what a gas see cruel deprivements SECTION SEVEN moral ambiguities SECTION NINETEEN Alice's thighs are like SECTION TWENTY-ONE

I need to know all the SECTIONs so I can use them as shorthand I am somewhat interested in SECTION TWENTY-ONE PS there is no punctuation in this story

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 985: Runyon First and Last / Damon Runyon (Graphic 30)

Paperback 985: Graphic 30 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Runyon First and Last
Author: Damon Runyon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• I oppose fur but that is a magnificent fur. That is an ostentatious, almost comically elongated sleeve. And shoulder pad.
• I love how she seems to be admiring Runyon's name while poor Slats pleads spectrally in the background.
• Runyon is a really important early 20c. American newspaperman and short story writer. He records and cultivates a certain hardboiled, slangy, colloquial style that ends up being very influential. You may know him from such things as "Guy & Dolls."

Best things about this back cover:

• Runyonese. I like my ham on rye with extra Runyonese.
• The titles of these stories alone are worth the price of admission. Soupbone Pew!
• "Informal Execution" is such a menacing phrase. I'm guessing that one wasn't made into a musical.

Page 123~ (from "Old New Year's")

On this day everybody swears off doing something or other, generally drinking, which is very easy for most people to swear off on New Year's Day, because generally they feel so tough from welcoming in the New Year that they never wish to see another drink again as long as they live, or anyway until they feel better.

I like that usage of "tough." So much more delicately ambiguous than the straight jab of "hungover."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 984: Vanish in an Instant / Margaret Millar (Dell 730)

Paperback 984: Dell 730 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Vanish in an Instant
Author: Margaret Millar
Cover artist: Griffith Foxley

Estimated value: $8
Condition: 6/10

Best things about this cover:

• Death comes for Richie and Joanie and the whole Arnold's gang!
• Two great surprise faces. And then blond dude. Blond dude is like "Hey ... I'm also here ... what's up? Nice knife."
• My two favorite things about this cover are That Hand and That Ribbon.
• Margaret Millar was the wife of Kenneth Millar, aka Ross Macdonald. Ross and I both have English Ph.D.s from Michigan. Go Blue.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's kinda busy. Swoosh, swish, plummet!
• "How many mysteries rate THIS kind of rave?" Uh, six! No, eight! Thirty-four! ... what do you mean, "rhetorical"?
• Gonna need a fact-check on "Not one in a hundred." Sounds kinda made-up.

Page 123~

"Are you still here?"
"Yes."
"Want a drink?"
"Not now, thanks."
"It's rum," she said.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 983: Angel! / Carter Brown (Signet S2094)

Paperback 983: Signet 2094S (PBO, 1962)

Title: Angel!
Author: Carter Brown
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Estimated value: $6
Condition: 6/10 (stupid sticker pull) (8th ring of hell for pb stickerers!)

Best things about this cover:

• I have always been fascinated by highly localized storms. Here, we see a downpour located exclusively in the butt region of a woman whose name, I gather, is Angel (!)
• Yes ... a "luscious lass." A very luscious lass. Lass is definitely what I think when I look at this cover. "Nice lass!" I think to myself. McGinnis had an amazing talent for drawing ... lasses. 
• The wraparound hand! To go with the wraparound gaze! It's an exquisite, if uneventful, cover painting.

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a rather defensive opening claim. I saw the cover. I didn't have doubts. Easy, copywriter.
• Don't tell Venus she took second. Trust me, when goddesses lose beauty contests, *very* bad things happen.
• Mavis Seidlitz thrillers!? I don't think I own any of these. Color me intrigued.

Page 123~

"So what happens after the bomb, huh? Tell me that?"

Wow. Timely.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]